And Still The Earth Turns

How far would you go for the one you love?

Qasim has everything planned out; a bright future, the love of a girl who shared his dreams and a loving family.

But all that changes in a matter of seconds.

On a Thursday evening, two suicide bombers blow themselves up in the middle of a crowded religious shrine in Lahore's famous Anarkali market. The reverberations of the blasts are felt throughout Lahore, throwing the lives of many into disarray, none more so than Jabbar Kaleem and his wife Fatima as they worry about the fate of their three sons in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The blast sets off a chain reaction of events that intertwine the lives and fates of a cast of characters, each with a personal element at stake. There is Raja Fiaz, the notorious student federation leader, always on the lookout for recruits and a way to climb the power rung. There's Deemu, the mysterious and lethal right-hand man of Raja Fiaz, who is out on a personal vendetta. There's Sharoon, the wrongfully accused student from the Christian colony who has seen his elder brother tortured and die in front of his eyes. There is the mysterious stranger who takes Sharoon in and instructs him on how to exact revenge.

There is Mustafa, the eldest of the Kaleem sons, who feels abandoned and ignored by his father, turning to drugs for comfort. There is Ijaz, the youngest of the three brothers, madly in love and desperate to become someone of importance and impress the girl next door. But above all, it is the story of Qasim and Asma, two people from opposite ends of society who meet, fall in love and are wrenched apart in the cataclysmic upheaval caused by the blast.

Spanning years and stretching from the busy streets of Lahore to the rugged and desolate mountains of Swat, each must chart a way through the ruins of the past and make their way back. This is a story of finding one's identity and of holding on to love and knowing when to let go.